Well, I stumbled out of bed this morning at 6:30 am to get my 25 lbs. of turkey thighs smoking. I pulled them out of the brine, patted them dry, laid them out on my racks, put a light rub on them, and put them in the smoker. I also am doing a small chicken as well. The weather outside is less than desirable, however, not as cold as they predicted,about 16 degrees ABOVE ZERO...obviously because it is snowing. A storm coming out of the Rockies is moving up and we are on the edge of the heavier snow. Down in Minnesota, they are expecting the brunt of it. I am using maple and some hickory for wood chips. I just checked and everything is doing good, only one thing I noticed on my GOSM, that when the meat is covering the whole rack, I get juices that drip down on bottom of smoker and they run out the seams in the bottom of the smoker down by the legs. It seems to me that they could have put a removable drip pan in these newer units at the bottom of the smoker to catch those juices. Normally, when I smoke a Pork Butt I center the meat in the middle of the rack, and the juices are contained in the water pan. Anybody else experienced this?? Oh well.... I have a few pics of this mornings smoke and I will post finished pictures later today when they are done. The first couple of pics reflect the weather here this morning and the other two show the turkey rubbed and ready to go in smoker. Enjoy!!
